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"SMART CARDS", PART I: TOO "SMART" FOR OUR OWN GOOD?
Powerful, Computerized "Smart Cards" Are Spreading -- and Clinton Plans to
Make Them Compulsory for All Americans.
By Clark Matthews
Like it or not, smart cards have arrived. They're here and spreading fast,
thanks to experimental programs started during the Bush administration.
Those test programs forced Americans in certain regions to accept smart
cards -- and become dependent on them -- in order to receive public
assistance or government paychecks. Now, with a big push from the Clinton
administration, the cards are quickly marching out of today's experimental
welfare offices and food stamp centers -- and directly into your life.
You say you don't want a smart card?
Then you'd better study some of Clinton's pet legislation -- like the
"Childhood Immunization" bills described in this article. The real reason
for these proposed laws may have nothing to do with "helping children":
These laws call for all newborn children (and at least one parent) to be
"smart carded" at birth with a device that can monitor them 'across
geographical areas'.
Forcing Americans to Use Traceable "e-Cash"
Technically speaking, today's smart cards aren't very "smart." They simply
"remember" lots of things about the person who owns the card. They can
keep track of dollar amounts, food-stamp allotments, social security
numbers, personal security codes, addresses, phone numbers, or even your
cable-T.V. descrambler code. They must rely on other computers -- like ATM
machines, supermarket checkouts, or hospital admitting desks -- to update
their "memory" with correct information.
In countries around the world today, smart cards usually work like bank ATM
cards: They replace cash electronically -- creating traceable "e-cash."
In many cases, the "cash" on the card can be electronically "switched off",
so smart-card "money" or "food stamps" can be electronically confiscated on
command by cash dispensing machines, retail stores, welfare offices, or
other places where the card is used.
Indirectly, the cards can be quite intrusive, too. Even though they're not
"smart" enough to keep track of your transactions, they permit every
purchase can be stored and tracked by computer. Surprisingly, some
governments protect the privacy of citizens with the cards -- for example,
people in Denmark can get advanced cards that contain a personalized,
"public key" security code to protect the user's transactions. (Compare
this with the U.S., where the National Security Agency goes to great
lengths to suppress "uncrackable" public-key encryption software and punish
the geniuses who create it.)
But the Australian experience is more typical. Aussies can get similar
"cash cards" -- but people are troubled by revelations that all cashless
transactions are monitored and permanently stored in a huge national
computer database. Any "cashless" transaction in Australia can be
instantly matched to the person who made it.
Electronically "Created" Central-Bank Money -- Instant Public Debt?
In Japan, government and business decided to "go slow" issuing smart cards.
The reason is a 1988 study by Japanese economists that uncovered an
important problem with smart card money: When a bank (or the government,
or the phone company) issues a smart card, it instantly creates money. And
since all bank-issued money becomes public debt under a fractional-reserve,
central banking system, smart cards create corresponding debts for the
taxpayers at the same time.
Forced Dependence: America's Experimental Smart Cards Aren't Voluntary
In ominous contrast to more-or-less voluntary foreign smart-card programs,
over one million Americans with experimental smart cards were forced to
accept them in order to receive government benefits or paychecks. As a
result, these citizens are now completely dependent on the cards to receive
welfare, food stamps, medical services, or -- in the case of the Marines at
Parris Island, S.C. -- their paychecks. The circumstances of the people
chosen for these programs make it highly unlikely they will challenge the
program.
Clinton's "Childhood Immunizaton" Program: "Stealth" Smart-Carding Forced
on All Americans
Forced participation in a universal American smart card program is a
cornerstone of the Clinton agenda. It has been endorsed enthusiastically
by Clinton Administration social monitors and engineers, notably longtime
Clinton associate Ira Magaziner, who sees the cards as the lynchpin of
Hillary Clinton's Health-Care Plan -- and for governing "the kind of world
we want to produce". [See You Can't Hide From the Computer, The SPOTLIGHT,
June 28, 1993.]
Without waiting for the Health-Care Plan, however, Clinton's allies in
Congress have already proposed laws with "stealth" provisions to compel
parents to submit their families to "smart carding" -- or risk losing their
children. The "Childhood Immunization" bill, introduced by Sen. Ted
Kennedy (D-MA), calls for a national computerized registry of all children
under six years of age, together with at least one parent. There's no
doubt about the priorities of the Clinton plan -- Kennedy's legislation
calls for children to be "smart carded" at birth, and innoculated later!
Vaccinations will be tracked by smart cards issued to the children and
parents. According to Kennedy's chief legislative aide, Keith Powell, this
card system "will create a [national] registry with the capacity to do
tracking and surveillance of all U.S. children." The companion House bill,
introduced by Rep. Leslie Byrne (D-VA) states:
"The purpose of the system is to provide for national surveillance of
childhood immunization status through age six .... [and] develop a
registry to cover the entire nation with the capacity to link and
process all birth certificate records through a central registry ....
[and for] tracking children in mobile populations across geographic
areas."
The "Opening Wedge" of Computerized Tyranny?
Either way -- through Hillary's Healthcare Plan or the mandatory Childhood
Immunization program, Clinton's agenda clearly intends to force Americans
to accept today's limited smart cards and drive in the opening wedge for
future, "ultra-smart" cards -- card-size computers with frightful
possibilities.
If Clinton succeeds, he and his successors may soon have the power to
simply "switch off" the lives and property of opponents like a light bulb.
Future articles will describe some of the frightening new technologies in
future smart cards.
"SMART CARDS", PART II: TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD?
Tomorrow's "Smart Cards": Technical Marvels That Give Government Fearful
Power
By Clark Matthews
[Last week, "Smart Cards," Part I described America's primitive, present-
day "Smart Card" programs and the Clinton-backed "Childhood Immunization"
legislation designed to force the cards on each newborn American infant and
at least one of the child's parents. This week, we'll look at real smart
cards. These advanced "super-smart" devices are here -- right now -- and a
high-tech national infrastructure capable of supporting them is a top
priority on President Clinton's domestic agenda. Are these frightful new
devices the real reason for Clinton's "stealth" smart-card bills and his
hurry to tag and track every one of today's children?]
Hostage to a Smart Card
Imagine your whole life held hostage to a "smart card": a credit-card-
sized device with enough memory to hold every detail of your personal life.
It's your I.D., your driver's license, passport, voter registration card,
medical insurance, credit report, bank accounts, pension plan and much
more, all contained on a pocket-sized card.
But your card is also a computer -- an Application-Specific Integrated
Circuit (ASIC) card, to be precise. It can be programmed to control a
built-in cellular phone or wireless transmitter, so it could "phone home"
to the department ofmotor vehicles or FBI's NCIC computer whenever you use
it in a toll booth, airline baggage check, or your car's ignition. It
could act as a personal beeper, too, when people have official business
with you -- for example, the police, the IRS or child-welfare authorities.
Conversely, your card could be programmed to transmit its identification
code whenever you use it. So you (or your card, anyway) could be instantly
located anywhere on earth via the satellite-based Global Positioning System
(GPS). Just in case someone really wants to talk to you.
Now imagine someone pressing a few buttons, thereby seizing all your
assets, instructing your smart card to turn itself off and call the police
to come and get you. Get the picture? You'd better not leave home without
it.
The Anvil of Tyranny: Smart Cards, High-Tech Infrastructure
Does this nightmare device actually exist? No. To do everything you just
read about, you'd probably need three cards. More important, you need a
powerful, high-tech, national communications infrastructure to support the
step-by-step monitoring of all Americans. And if you wanted to make
Americans completely dependent on their smart cards, you'd need to force
each citizen to accept and carry the cards.
The cards are called Class 1 and Class 2 PCMCIA devices. They're the size
of a credit card, but a little bit thicker. They're modular: You can
stack them up, one on top of the other, to form a kind of "silicon
sandwich." So you can start with a memory card, add a "wireless" card or a
modem card, and then top the assembly off with an "execute-in-place" (XIP)
integrated-circuit (IC) card programmed to transform the whole "sandwich"
into an infernal, Soviet-style internal passport. Voila! You've
constructed a smart card from hell.
Pay a visit to your local computer store and ask to see a first-rate laptop
computer, like the IBM ThinkPad(R). You'll see an assortment of smart
cards that can go along with the computer. Why not ask for a demonstration
of:
A Class 1 Flash Memory Card. A triumph of miniaturization, these 3.3mm-
thick cards can permanently hold between 4 and 20 Megabytes of information
about you (16,000 - 80,000 typewritten pages) and update your "profile"
whenever necessary. One card can hold all your bank and brokerage
accounts, motor-vehicle, pension and property-tax records, your insurance
policies, medical and criminal history, your immediate family and where
they live, and much more. With plenty of room to spare.
A Class 2 Integrated-Circuit (IC) Card. These little cards are complete,
low-power computers. An IC card can store instructions (update your stock
portfolio daily with closing quotes), execute instructions by itself (erase
your bank balances; forfeit your home and Keogh plan to the IRS) and
control other cards attached to it (instruct ATM machines to "retain" your
card; call the police; transmit your ID code for location by satellite).
Future generations of these cards will be much more powerful.
A Class 2 Wireless Card. Wireless telephone cards are still being
prototyped, so you might have to settle for a local-area network card for
now. You'll see a device the size of a Visa card that can send or receive
up to 16 million bits of information per second. That's 8,000 pages of
stuff about you, give or take a little. Wireless modem cards aren't as
fast, but these little dillies can tell Big Brother all about your comings
and goings in the blink of an eye.
After snapping these cards together and trying them out, you might pause
and ask yourself ...
"Could It Happen Here?"
Technically, it's not a problem. The cards exist now. But Big Brother
isn't ready for them. PCMCIA cards are incompatible -- and far too "smart"
-- for today's ATM machines, hospital admitting offices, tollbooths, etc.
And an ultra-high-capacity national communications network is vital for
monitoring American smart cards in "real time". But the most important
element is completely absent: Americans haven't been forced to accept
smart cards. Yet.
Not coincidentally, all of these shortcomings are top priorities of the
Clinton administration. The president has made the high-tech
infrastructure a national priority. And laws designed to force Americans
to accept smart cards at birth are before both houses of Congress,
sponsored by heavyweight Democrats.
Stacking the Deck Against Privacy and Liberty
The Clinton administration understands these technologies. So do the
international financial interests that bankrolled him -- international
bankers are uniquely qualified to appreciate the immense power of computers
to liberate and control, to reveal and conceal.
Computers liberate the people who own them -- they control the people who
are forced to depend on them. Computers can reveal the daily routines and
modest assets of everyday people, exposing them to scrutiny and
confiscation. But they can conceal the machinations and crimes of powerful
people with private communications networks or access to "official" money-
moving technology, like the Federal Reserve "wire".
America needs a "high-tech information highway" -- but it doesn't need
mandatory smart cards. Because the combination of the two adds up to an
anvil for tyranny.
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(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)